In protest: Mavis Woodger, outside her home in Maidstone Kent, has stopped paying her council tax because of a six foot leylandii

A grandmother who claims a towering hedge is breaching her ‘right to light’ is refusing to pay her council tax.

Pensioner Mavis Woodger says her neighbours’ six foot leylandii leaves her living room in constant gloom and has killed off part of her garden.

The 83-year-old first complained to the council about the trees in 2007, but her claim was rejected. A subsequent appeal to the local government ombudsman also failed.

Lawyers for Mrs Woodger relied on laws dating back to the 19th century that state windows that have received natural light for at least 20 years are entitled to maintain this level of illumination.

The laws can prevent a neighbour from going ahead with a home extension or have high trees if it blocks out sunshine.

The grandmother-of-two claims the council have refused to have any further dealings with her regarding her complaint, saying it has been resolved.

But in a bid to force a resolution she has stopped paying her council tax on her £200,000 semi-detached home in the hope she will get summonsed to court.

Mrs Woodger, a retired sales assistant from Maidstone, Kent, said: ‘I have a right of light and I should be able to use my land.

‘I have lived in this house for 50 years, and my enjoyment of my property is not the same because of this. My life is not the same.

‘I cannot grow my plants where the hedge is now, it blocks out my light in my front room, and I have cracks in my paving.’ But neighbours Gary and Clare Gilby say old photographs show the hedge was higher still in the 1980s.

Mrs Gilby said: ‘We keep the hedge at two metres - we wouldn’t want it any taller because it would restrict the light.’ A Maidstone Borough Council spokesman said: ‘We investigated Mrs Woodger’s complaint about her neighbour’s front garden hedge in 2007.

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‘At 2.1 metres in height, it was decided that it was not adversely affecting Mrs Woodger’s enjoyment of her property, and this decision was upheld by the Planning Inspectorate.

‘If Mrs Woodger wishes to pursue a right
to light, she can do so as a civil matter; the council has no legal
powers to get involved.’ Earlier this year, the Law Commission, a
government advisory body, suggested the right to light was acting as a
barrier to development and should be reined in.

Fight: Miss Woodger, 83, has been complaining to the council for eight years over her neighbours' six foot trees, pictured in background

It said it had simply become a ‘tool to extract money from a neighbour who proposes to develop his or her land’.

The Commission warns that such rights have a ‘disproportionately negative impact upon the potential for the development of land’.

It wants to change the law so that new properties do not acquire a right to light after 20 years. The change would not affect existing rights.

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Hedge fight gran refuses to pay her council tax in row over towering hedge that she says is breaching her 'right to light'